Installation of a Stoker Boiler at EFM

It's not that the coal won't burn. The entire pot is glowing orange. It just doesn't burn fast enough to turn to ash before it's pushed over the edge. I'll try 5 teeth tomorrow and let it burn 24/7 if I have to.

I don't think the fire pot is big enough to handle the maximum settings without tremendous waste. My house requires 250k BTU's and my boiler is set at 5 teeth feed, 6 air in the winter and it never lags. I run it at 3/4 sometimes to save a little. As a matter of fact when it's running constantly in a deep freeze weather period you can't even get near the fire door. I tried the max to see what would happen but I got the same result, glowing hot coals in the ash bucket. I'm guessing that 75 years ago the coal burned up faster, I can't think of any other explanation. The guy who invented the EFM surely wasn't a dummy.

This morning I ran at 5 teeth and set it back to 4 teeth. It was up near the high limit all day, the warehouse was 67 and the office was 75. Most of the day it didn't run except for the timer. Maybe I'll never need the high settings. There is an oversized burner ring installed which holds quite a bit more coal/ashes.

Filled the bin with Blaschak coal today.

Here is the current pot in the morning, after it's been burning for about 4 hours straight. 7 teeth and about 7 air. During the day when it catches up with the building, the dark spot is gone and there is a nice ash ring.

The problem with the burning was because the motor was running in the wrong direction and I wasn't getting the correct air to the pot.

A word of warning: Some motors are switched in the opposite direction of their advertised rotation on the label. If anybody is having trouble with air settings and proper ash ring, check that your motor is turning in a counter-clockwise direction. There could be more than one motor out there switched wrong.

The project is now complete unless there is a volunteer who wants to paint the logo on the bin.

Nice install Chris! You should come out of the factory and start an Install business. You'd have a hell of a reference folder. Not to many people have installed a boiler in the boiler plant

We've had a few days of colder weather with temperatures in the 30's during the day and the stoker is now running at 10 teeth and 10 air. The solar gain keeps the warehouse above the thermostat setting of 60 degrees and the boiler tends to linger at 220 degrees for most of the day. The setback is 55 at night, but it takes about 8 hours of non-stop operation to bring the warehouse back up to 60 degrees. The timer was set back to 1 1/2 minutes every 30 due to overheating the boiler at idle.

I don't know the heat load of the building, but a 400K btuh furnace wasn't able to do as well, a few years back.

Good feedback I'll be interested in how it does in the middle for January

8 hours of burn to make a 5 degree temperature rise on the building

no heat loss calc? --- hummmmm

Well at least you can easily track your degree day load over the same period and track your run time to that.

Then -- leave the temp at 60one day -- wire a timer over the stoker to track run time and extrapolate that into the same time of degree load and you can determine if that big a set back on this coal boiler install is worth while. Try a 10 degree set back -- try a 2 degree. Plot each against your degree day weight.

This is for training - Right?

Maybe this will help.

http://www.degreedays.net/

The office is the priority zone, the warehouse gets what's left over. I'll try the degree day test in January.

It's hard to believe that was over 6 years ago. I've been out of efm for 5. If efm was still in Emmaus, I'd still be there and so would some others. We removed everything. All the pipes and Modines were ripped out, hacked to pieces, along with the stoker and sent packing. The hardest part was putting forks through the coal bin wall and breaking it to dumpster-size pieces.

Still a great post SM, lots of valuable and timeless info.
It is never easy destroying a project you put so much time and pride into.
I know this post helped me on my install
CS

I sure looked at this thread plenty of times b4 installing my EFM in a truck box.
Good clear pics helped lots in my decision making process.
I looked at lots of pics of EFM installs in lots of threads.

This thread was very helpful to me to. I don't even have an EFM boiler, just the stoker. Still, it helped me understand some of the finer points of stoker operation, coal bin setup and plumbing.

I'm sorry to hear that it was all removed 5 years ago? Wow!

-Don